The first time I got introduced to the works of a, at the time, young singer calling himself 'Sizzla Kalonji' was when I heard the album Black Woman & Child somewhere in the mid to late 90s. I was very impressed with what I heard and ever since started following the musical output of this man from August Town, Jamaica. Lots can be said about his varying output from his debut Burning Up (1995) 'til his latest The Messiah (2013), but here I'd like to focus on the years that I and many with me consider his best: 1995 - 2002. He truly made classic tunes and albums in those years, mainly but not solely for producers Philip "Fatis" Burrell and Bobby "Digital B" Dixon. In this set of 2 mixes I like to showcase the early works in roots of Sizzla Kalonji & Bredren. It started off as a single-mix-effort, but after reaching the 80 min mark on the first, I had too many superb tunes left that had to be included, so a 2nd mix was born. I still had to leave out many killer tunes I highly rate, but felt 2 was enough for now. It does say something about the quality of his output of those days! The choice of tracks is based on my personal preference, diversity in the mix and the vibe of the moment. I'm not a fan of Sizzla in his falsetto style, so left tunes with that out. A tracklist like this is surely debatable, but for now it all lead to this and good music it is! Finding next tracks on riddims or even some dubs has been very time consuming, but very enjoyable to do: hadn't focussed this much on that time period in a while and man, what a pleasure it was to delve into it. Very hard to mix right at points too, due to the included tunes from other artists on the same riddims being mixed totally different (especially with Xterminator, love that attention they gave to every single tune in those days!) or coming from different albums with a different final mixing. I decided to strictly use tunes I have on original format (so no downloads), be it CD, LP or 45s and combined some with other tracks and/or dubs on the same riddims for a diverse, quality journey through the works of Sizzla Kalonji and with that through JA music of 1995 - 2002. Next artists include Luciano, Cocoa Tea, Anthony B, Admiral Tibet, Capleton, Jah Cure, Prince Malachi, Morgan Heritage and more. Mixes are in the usual BMC-style: no full tunes, one continuous 80 minute mix each with soundsamples here and there and with sources given for each track. Big up to my mate Andre who helped in the riddimspotting and provided a couple of original CD's for use in the process!

Enjoy reggae music as good as it gets. Tell 'm, Kalonji!

Tracks (in brackets is the name of the album or label of the single the tune came from, V.A. means the album is a compilation)